Eric Mazur is the Balkanski Professor of
Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University and Area Dean of
Applied Physics. An internationally recognized scientist and researcher,
he leads a vigorous research program in optical physics and supervises
one of the largest research groups in the Physics Department at Harvard
University. Mazur founded several companies and plays an active role in
industry. He has served the OSA previously as Director-at-large.

Dr. Mazur came to Harvard University in 1982 after obtaining his
Ph.D. at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. In 1984 he joined
the faculty and obtained tenure six years later. Dr. Mazur has made
important contributions to spectroscopy, light scattering, the
interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with materials, and
nanophotonics. Dr. Mazur received an Honorary Doctorate from the Ecole
Polytechnique and the University of Montreal (2008) and holds Honorary
Professorships from Beijing University of Technology, Beijing Normal
University, and the Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.

Eric Mazur has received numerous awards, including the Esther Hoffman
Beller award from the Optical Society of America and the Millikan Medal
from the American Association of Physics Teachers. In 2014 Mazur became
the inaugural recipient of the Minerva Prize for Advancements in Higher
Education. He is Fellow of the Optical Society of America and Fellow of
the American Physical Society. He is a Member of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of the Netherlands and a Member of the Royal Holland Society of
Sciences and Humanities. He has held appointments as Visiting Professor
or Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University, Vanderbilt
University, the University of Leuven in Belgium, National Taiwan
University in Taiwan, Carnegie Mellon University, and Hong Kong
University.

Dr. Mazur has served on numerous committees and councils, including
advisory and visiting committees for the National Science Foundation,
and has chaired and organized national and international scientific
conferences. He serves as consultant to industry in the electronics and
telecommunications industry. In 2006 he founded SiOnyx, a company that
is commercializing black silicon, a new form of silicon developed in
Mazur's laboratory. Mazur is currently Chairman of the Scientific
Advisory Board for SiOnyx. In 2011 he founded Learning Catalytics, a
company that uses data analytics to improve learning in the classroom.
In 2013 the company was acquired by Pearson. Mazur is Chief Academic
Advisor for Turning Technologies and serves on the Scientific Advisory
Panel for Allied Minds, a pre-seed investment company creating
partnerships with key universities to fund corporate spin-outs in early
stage technology companies.

In addition to his work in optical physics, Mazur has been very
active in education. In 1990 he began developing Peer Instruction, a
method for teaching large lecture classes interactively. He is the author of
Peer Instruction: A User's Manual (Prentice Hall, 1997), a book
that explains how to teach large lecture classes interactively. In 2006
he helped produce the award-winning DVD Interactive Teaching.
Dr. Mazur's teaching method has developed a large following, both
nationally and internationally, and has been adopted across many
disciplines.

Dr. Mazur is author or co-author of
291 scientific publications,
36 patents,
and several books, including the Principles and Practice of
Physics (Pearson, 2014), a book that presents a groundbreaking new approach
to teaching introductory calculus-based physics. Mazur is a sought-after
speaker on optics and on education.